Betty Wales, Senior Part 16

"Well," said Betty, when everybody had congratulated her and Rachel, whose appointment on all 19--'s important committees had come to be a foregone conclusion, "I hope Nita and Rachel and K. won't be sorry they came. You three aren't so much mixed up in it as the rest of us, but I thought I'd ask you anyway."

"Do you mean that I can't have my usual three slices of lemon?" demanded Katherine indignantly.

"Hush, material-minded one," admonished Nita. "There's more than tea and lemon in this. There's a great secret. Of course we shall be interested in it. Fire away, Betty."

"And everybody stop watching the kettle," commanded Babbie, who had taken it in charge, "and then perhaps it will begin to boil."

"What I wanted to tell you," began Betty, impressively, "is that Miss Hale is going to be married this vacation."

"Good for Miss Hale!" cried Bob, throwing up a pillow. "Did her sister get well?"

"Yes," said Betty. "She was dreadfully ill all summer, and then she had to go away for a change. Ethel wanted to wait until she was perfectly strong, because she had looked forward so to being maid-of-honor."

"I think we ought to send Miss Hale a present," said Babe, decisively.

"Madame President, please instruct the secretary---- Why, we haven't any president now," ended Babe in dismay.

"Let's elect Betty," suggested Nita.

"She's too young for such a responsible position," objected Bob. "It's only the dramatics committee that takes infants."

"And besides, her hair curls," added Madeline, reaching out to pull one of the offending ringlets. "Curly-haired people don't deserve to be elected to offices."

"Let's have Babe," suggested Rachel.

"She's older than her name, her hair has always been straight----"

"Except once," put in Katherine, and everybody shrieked with laughter at the recollection of Babe's one disastrous experience with a marcelle wave.

"And then she looked like a wild woman of Borneo," went on Rachel, "so it shouldn't count against her. Furthermore this society was organized to give her a chance."

"All right," agreed Nita. "I withdraw my nomination. Babe, you're elected. Instruct the secretary to cast a unanimous ballot for yourself."

"Very well," said Babe with much dignity. "Please do it, Madeline, and then I appoint you and Betty and Eleanor to choose a present for Miss Hale. I was just going to say, when I interrupted myself to remark upon the extraordinary absence of a presiding officer"--Babe coughed and dropped her presidential manner abruptly--"I was going to say that I'm all for a stuffed turtle, like those we got in Na.s.sau. I think a ripping big one would be the very thing."

"Babe!" said Babbie scornfully. "Imagine how a turtle would look among her wedding presents."

"I think it would look stunning," persisted Babe, "and it would be so appropriate from us."

"Don't be dictatorial, Babe," advised Rachel. "It isn't seemly in a president. Perhaps your committee can think of something appropriate that won't be quite so startling as a turtle. When is the wedding, Betty?"

"The thirty-first of December at half-past eight," explained Betty.

"New Year's eve--what a nice, poetical time," interposed Babbie, thoughtfully. "I think that if I ever marry----"

"Hush, Babbie," commanded Nita. "You probably never will. Do let Betty finish her story."

"Well, it's to be a very small wedding," went on Betty, hastily, "with no cards, but announcements, but Ethel wrote me herself and she wants us all--the Na.s.sau ones, I mean--and Mary Brooks, to come."

"Jolly for Miss Hale!" cried Bob, tossing up two pillows this time.

"How perfectly dear of her!" said Babbie.

"The biggest turtle we can get won't be a bit too good for her,"

declared Babe.

"But where could we stay over night?" asked Helen, the practical-minded.

"You don't give me a chance to tell you the whole of anything,"

complained Betty, sadly. "We're invited guests--specially invited, I mean, and it's all arranged where we are to stay. Ethel is going to have her sister and four bridesmaids to walk with her, and she wants us girls to hold a laurel rope along the line of march of the wedding-party, as they go through the rooms."

"Jolly," began Babe, but she was promptly suppressed by Madeline, who tumbled her flat on her back and held her down with a pillow while she ordered Betty to proceed.

"I'll read you what else she says," went on Betty, triumphantly producing Miss Hale's letter. "She says, 'There won't be many people to get in the way of the procession, but the aisle effect will be pretty, and besides I want my match-makers to have a part in the grand denouement of all their efforts. Will you ask the others and write Mary Brooks, whose address I don't know. My uncle's big house next door to us will have room for you all, and you must come in time for my bridesmaids' luncheon and a little dance, both on the thirtieth.' Now isn't that splendid?"

"Perfectly splendid," echoed her auditors.

"Why, we shall be almost bridesmaids," said Roberta Lewis in awestruck tones. "Does Mary know?"

Betty nodded. "She hasn't had time to answer yet, but she can certainly go, as she lives so near Ethel."

"The only difficulty about our going," said Babe, "is what to do with the few days between the wedding and the opening of college."

"And that's easily settled," said Madeline promptly. "Miss Hale lives just out of New York, doesn't she? Well, you are all to come and stay in the flat with me. Hasn't it just been beautifully cleaned? And aren't you all longing for a glimpse of Bohemia?"

That was the climax of the tea drinking. The Merry Match-Makers spent the evening writing home to their parents for permission to go to the wedding and considering momentous problems of dress. For Roberta's best evening-gown was lavender and Babbie's was pink, and the question was how to distribute Betty, Babe and Helen in white, Bob in blue, Eleanor in her favorite yellow, Madeline in ecru, and Mary in any one of a bewildering number of possible toilettes, so as to justify Ethel's hope that the aisle would be ornamental as well as useful.

How the days flew after that! For besides the wedding there were the luncheon and the dance to antic.i.p.ate and plan for, as well as the unknown joys of Bohemia, New York, not to mention the regular excitement of going home, the fun of tucking Christmas presents into the corners of half-packed trunks, and the terrors of the written lesson that some inhuman member of the faculty always saves for the crowded last week of the term.

On the afternoon of the twenty-ninth the Merry Match-Makers met in New York. Babbie had sent a sad little note to Miss Hale and a tearful one to Betty to say that her mother, who was a good deal of an invalid, had "looked pretty blue over my running off early, and so of course I won't leave her;" and Helen Adams had decided that considering all the extra expenses of senior year she couldn't afford the trip to New York. So there were only seven "almost bridesmaids," as Roberta called them, or "posts," which was Bob's name for them, to fall upon one another as if they had been separated for years, instead of a week, say thank you for the presents that were each "just what I wanted," and exclaim excitedly over Betty's new suit, Mary's fur coat, and the sole-leather kit-bag that Santa Claus had brought Roberta.

"It's queer," said Bob. "I feel as if I'd had one whole vacation already, and ought to be unpacking and digging on psychology 6 and history 10. Whereas in reality I'm just beginning on another whole vacation. It's like having two Thanksgiving dinners in one year."

"Not quite like that, I hope," laughed Eleanor, as they started off to inspect the wedding present, a beautiful pair of tall silver candlesticks. Madeline had ransacked New York to find them, and every one but Babe, who clung to her turtle as far superior to any "musty old antiques," thought them just odd and distinctive enough to please Ethel's fastidious taste. And after that there was barely time to catch the train they had arranged to take out to Ethel's home.

Interest in the bride and in their own part of the wedding ceremony had caused the "Merry Hearts" to forget Dr. Eaton, and they had never once considered that of course his college chum, John Alison, would leave the railroad he was building in Arizona and come east to be Dr. Eaton's best man. And it was Mr. John Alison who had "finished" Georgia Ames. He inquired for her at once and so did his brother Tom, who was an usher, and who explained that he had been invited to keep John in order, and to intercede for him with the "posts."

"And in return for my services as peacemaker," he said solemnly, "I expect to be treated with special consideration by everybody."

Subsequent events seemed to show that the special consideration referred to meant a chance to see as much as possible of Betty Wales.

Even more surprising to three of the posts was the presence of Mr.

Richard Blake in the wedding-party--Richard Blake, editor of "The Quiver," and one-time lecturer at Harding on the tendencies of modern drama.

Eleanor's face was a study when she recognized him, but before Miss Hale could begin any introductions Madeline greeted him enthusiastically and got him into a corner, where they exchanged low-toned confidences for a moment.

"I'm particularly glad to meet you again, Miss Watson," he said in a tone of unmistakable sincerity, when he was presented. "We had a jolly dinner together once, didn't we?"

"d.i.c.k's such an old dear," Madeline whispered to Betty half an hour later. "He confided to me just now that the first evening he saw Eleanor he thought her the most fascinating girl he had ever met, and then he hastened to a.s.sure me that that had absolutely nothing to do with his deciding to keep dark about her story. I don't doubt him for a moment--d.i.c.k perfectly detests cheating. But he can't make me believe that he's being nice to her now just on my account."